The overall objective of this research is to describe the life patterns of mildly retarded young persons in transition from childhood to adulthood and to begin to fill a serious gap in knowledge of development over life stages. We intend to examine the daily lives of mildly retarded adolescents in contract to a comparable sample of nonretarded young adults, so that we may learn about the relative influences of psychological and environmental factors on the socioemotional adjustment of these handicapped individuals. We will rely primarily on the framework of ethnography to collect qualitative and quantitative information to achieve an integrated understanding and description of the lives of the adolescents we are studying. We will (1) examine personal characteristics of the adolescents and the stability of these characteristics during this transitional period; (2) document the nature of the school experience for the adolescent including patterns of adaptation and roles within the school setting, and peer relationships, and (3) evaluate parent/adolescent interaction and consider reciprocal effects between family demands and expectations and the adolescent's social and psychological behavior. Through following mildly retarded and nonretarded adolescents and seeing how their life experiences differ, we hope to be able to identify factors which help and hinder the social development of mildly retarded young persons and to suggest strategic interventions which may better prepare them as they move into adulthood.